The Balkan Blues

 She wraps her thick black hair into a knot on the top of her head.  Pulling a small mirror from her large synthetic-leather bag, she plucks some wisps of hair from the knot and arranges them carefully to look careless. 

Sophia is Serbian.  She’s on her way to Montenegro to meet some friends for a holiday. She occupies the window seat next to me on the bus from Dubrovnik to Budva, Montenegro.

“Do you know any cheap place to stay,” she asks me.

“I’ll stay in a hostel.  It’s 11 Euro a night,” I tell her.

She stares at me, her eyes wide in dismay. “Oh,” she says, “Why don’t you stay in a room? People tell me there are rooms in houses cheap. I hope there are, because I can’t spend so much money.”

I reassure her that usually local people show up at the bus stations offering cheap rooms in their homes.

“How much are these rooms? I am kindergarten teacher,” she tells me.  “I have very little money. I left Serbia and went to Zagreb for work.  But really, there is no work.  I graduated from Tourism and Culture, but I can’t find job, so I take job in school with babies.  I hate it.  Their parents are very rich and they are very spoiled.  I am like baby sitter.  And they pay me so little.  But what can I do?”

The Internet source ‘Balkan Insight’ writes that 500 people a day become jobless in Serbia. They state 27% unemployment with an average salary of 380 euro a month.  

Outside the bus, green cliffs drop to a turquoise sea. Traffic halts. The coast road along the Adriatic Sea from Croatia to Montenegro is clogged with vacationing tourists.

***

I had stayed one day and night In Dubrovnik.  I was fortunate enough to have a friend living there who offered me the hospitality of a stay in her home.  We had met the year she had lived in Istanbul.

Dubrovnik proved a bizarre scene -  scantily-clad, rich foreigners parading about with their well-tanned, well-oiled skin on display, wearing extremely expensive but outlandishly skimpy outfits.

Entering the Old Town of Dubrovnik I felt strangely unhinged.  I knew I was outside, but  felt like I was inside.  Walking through the gate into Old Town was like entering an open-air museum.  Unlike Sarajevo where shell-pocked areas are filled-in with a blood-red laminate to mark the spots, and walls of buildings are a bullet-ridden pattern of past carnage, Dubrovnik has erased any and all traces of war.  It stands like a Disneyland theme park for adults: every stone of every building, every marble cobblestone on every street and alleyway shimmering in an alabaster-white sheen of prosperity and security. A scrupulously polished playground for the rich.

The women strutting Dubrovnik’s Old City were equally unreal.  Three women passed me and I had to repress my urge to stare.  Wearing skin-tight, crotch-high, cleavage-revealing dresses, they hip-swayed over the glimmering white marble lanes, one stilettoed foot in front of the other.

Ah, they’re top fasion models on a shoot, I thought to myself. But there were no camera men.  It wasn’t a shoot.  A few minutes later, along came another pair – with legs just as long and shapely, in equally short, tight, outlandish dresses, and equally high-heeled shoes. In twos and threes they strutted their way along the slick streets as tourists sipped fine wine and twirled expensive strands of spaghetti dishes on their forks amidst laughter and holiday good times.

“Yes,” said the Croatian friend I stayed with in Dubrovnik, “Old City Dubrovnik is called ‘the Longest Catwalk in the World.”

“Do you ever go to the Old Cıty,” I asked her.

“No,” she said, “only when I take someone who’s visiting me, and then I try to send them by themselves if possible.  I really never go there.”

“And what about work here??

“Well, in the summer there is work in tourism.  In the winter there is no work.  My degree is in design.  It’s impossible to get a job here.  Maybe if I went to Zagreb I could find something.  That’s why I was in Istanbul.  I found work there for one year.”

***

Things are even worse in Sarajevo.  Neno leads a free walking tour of Sarajevo, depending on the tips of tourists.  He’s passionate about his subject.

“My mother is Muslim.  My father is Serb, but of course he stayed with us during the four years of the war.”

“What about school during those years,” I ask him.  “How did you go to school?”

“We had classes in basements in different neighborhoods.  We ran through sheltered streets to these underground schools.  My mother is a nurse.  And she refused to stay home.  Everyday she walked to the hospital where so many people were injured and dying.  And my father fought for the resistance.”

He points to one of the “roses” on the street. – a shelled area filled in with red. I stand and look, try to imagine what it must have been like to spend four years being shot at by men on the hills surrounding Sarajevo. To be a moving target in a life and death game of chance.

Now the hills are green and verdent.  An early morning mist hangs like wisps of gauze over them.But the people of Sarajevo are still struggling.

“There is 65% unemployment in the winter among the youth of Sarajevo, only 45% in the summer,” Neno tells us. One online source states that  1.35 million Bosnians live abroad out of a total population of 3.752 million. One survey of Bosnia’s  young people states that 81% of those polled stated they would leave tomorrow if they could, in order to find employment opportunities.

On the Balkan Express mini-bus from Budva, Montenegro back to Bosnia, the road winds up into the mountains from the Adriatic sea.  Suddenly I look down and see a river that’s a shade of milky tourquoise.  We continue to serpentine along the Tara River Canyon gorge.  No people.  No houses. Only craggy gray cliffs, deep-green-leaved trees, and a wide party ribbon of turquoise at the bottom. 

When we go uphill, the driver cuts the air-conditioning.  The steward opens the air vent in the roof.  The mini-bus huffs and puffs it’s way up the steep canyon like the little train that could.  The passengers pant and sweat in the heat. We make it to the top of the ridge and begin our descent, finally traveling alongside this incredibly startling light-blue river. It pools into lakes, then swiggles into a river again. 

Eventually we come to a town and stop at a tiny bus stop/cafe.  Passengers slide out of the bus covered in slick sweat.  The driver shouts something in some Balkan language.  A tall, long-haired, natural blond steps out before me.  

“How much time do we have?  Is there enough time to use a toilet?” I ask.

She smiles a charming, white-toothed smile.

“Yes.  Yes.  Come quick with me.  I take you,” she says.

When we get to the toilet, both myself and a young English girl traveling on the same bus fumble for correct change to pay the toilet attendent.  The long-haired blond pays for us and instructs us to go ahead.

When I exit the toilet I try to pay her back.

“No. No, please,”she smiles.  “Is nothing. You are guest in my country. Come sit a minute with me.”

Her name is Jelena.  She comes from Foca. I force a euro into her hand.

“How did you learn to speak English so well?” I ask her.

Her face brightens into a big smile.

“Really? You think I speak English well? .”

“Absolutely,” I say, “and I’m an English teacher.”

“I never took a course,” she says, speaking quickly.  I didn’t go to university.  I just watch TV shows in English and listen to music and learn.  Also this way I learn German.”

“You are so smart,” I tell her.

“Really” But I just work as au pair in Germany - Frankfurt,” she tells me.  “But people are not good people,” she says.  “They tell me they pay 300 Euros a month, but they only give 200.  They say I get 2 days off every week, but I work 7 days a week.  But what can I do?  If I leave, then what will my family do?  I’m only one with job now.  If I leave, we don’t eat anything.”

She roots through her yellow plastic hand bag and pulls out a pack of cigarettes.

“Would you like one?’

I decline.

“I never smoked before, but I get so nervous in Germany I start.”  She scratches at her arms and legs, draws on her cigarette, compulsively scratches some more.

“I am not lucky,” she tells me.  “I was born here.”

The bus driver honks the horn, summoning the passengers back into the bus.  When she gets off at Foca, she smiles and waves to me. I continue on, returning to Sarajevo.

In the morning I walk up the hill to the war cemetary.  White stone markers pop from the ground like a field of death flowers.  I gaze down at the red  tile roofs, the domes and minarets of the mosques, and tall crosses and church steeples.

Sarajevo is such a lovely, tranquil place now. On the 16th, the Sarajevo International Film Festival will begin. It will be packed with tourists. 

The war with bullets and mortar shells has ended.  But the war with poverty rages on.

Dancing at the Bakirkoy Mental Hospital

When my friend Cabbar invited me to come to the annual party at Turkey's largest and most famous psychiatric hospital, I wasn't sure if I would go.  Cabbar is a musician who had been invited to come and play music with his group for the party.  Knowing how much I love to dance, he asked if I wanted to come along.

Always trying to be open to new and potentially uplifting experiences, I decided to accompany this group of young, alternative Turkish musicians to their gig at the mental hospital gardens.
 
The hospital sent one of their vans to Beyoglu to pick us up, and twenty musicians, jugglers, and myself climbed in along with musical instruments, amplifiers, hula hoops, and red clown noses. The sky was filled with dark ominous rain clouds when we left.  The smell of rain was in the air.

By the time we arrived, the sun was shining.

My musician friends took the stage and set up their equipment as the clowns/jugglers donned their red noses and gay apparel and juggled, hula hooped, and circulated through the throng of patients, visitors, nurses, orderlies, young, old and everything in-between inviting people to join the festivities.

When the music started everyone took seats in front of the stage, sat and listened.  But to my mind, music is made for dancing.  It has always seemed a cosmic wrong not to dance when good music is playing.  And so I began to shake and shimmy, swirl and twirl, inviting people to join me.  Soon the people were on their feet, patients' faces lit up in huge, joyful smiles.  Nurses and patients, orderlies and visitors, clowns and children all dancing together.    

At one point, the musicians broke into a lively, well-known Turkish song.  The patients formed a huge circle, holding onto each other like a long conga line.  A bit out of rhythm.  A bit clumsy.  But one hundred percent joyful they danced around in the sunshine in front of the stage, then broke away to dance with other visitors, clowns, jugglers, and me.

All of us celebrating the music and the moment and life.

Shoulder to Shoulder: Gezi Park

Today: Gezi Park.
I walked up from Besiktas on Gumussuyu Ave. for the first time since the protests began. As I emerged from the steps that lead up from the waterfront, the hair on my arms stood straight up. The cobblestones and bricks had been pulled from the sidewalks to create blockades on every street. Blockades erected to deny the police access. Cobblestones, bricks, outdoor cement tree and shrub planters, plasterboard siding from construction sites, signs - anything portable had been stacked by protesters to deter the police.

Then i reached the top and the sight of Taksim Square filled my eyes with tears. Everywhere. Everywhere flags of every color and shape fluttered in the wind. Red, yellow, orange, blue, white. Flags, banners, placards.

I had wondered, by day 6 would the people's energy weaken?

There were more people of more diverse backgrounds than before.

A group of leathery-faced Alevis (Muslim's most oppressed sub-group) marched and chanted as the crowd applauded them. Behind them, pot-bellied union workers waved flags. They were followed by blithe university kids whistling and singing and clapping. With the passage of each group the other people around would clap and cheer. Bodacious mustachioed Kemalists cheered a group of Kurkish protesters. Football team antagonists marched shoulder to shoulder. Opposing party members helped opposition raise their banners in trees.

One middle-aged woman stood on the steps up to the park waving the Socialist flag. "I have a son," she told me. I don't want him to inherit a world of injustice. I'm here so he can have freedom and a better life."
She hugged me and thanked me for coming and supporting the Turkish people. A young woman came up to us offering us free sandwiches from a large plastic bag filled with sandwiches.

Other young people roamed the park offering various free food items. Some appeared to be pastries donated by bakeries in Taksim. Other volunteers moved silently through the crowd picking up trash.

Under trees heaps of cat food lay in mounds. Along one wall supplies were stacked on the ledge of blocks: antidotes for tear gas; bandages for wounds; antiseptics; concoctions of water and Talcid; biscuits; water.

At one station people come and donate supplies as volunteers sort and dispense.
On the crest of one hill, a sound system has been set up. Between rousing speeches musicians come and play. People form circles and dance traditional Turkish folk dances.

Young, old, fat, thin, left, right are joined in a common cause: freedom

Polarization

Last night at 9pm, people all over Turkey banged and clanged their pots and pans. Friends reported absolute riots of protesting cacophony in Cihangir, Cukurcuma, Besiktas... But my neighborhood was silent with the exception of me and one other pot banger down the street (probably another foreigner or alternative Turk.) From their flats old men shouted angrily at us to stop. Why, i wondered.
My neighborhood is a poor, un-western, area filled with poor, religious Turks. And they support Tayip Erdogan and the AKP Party. Because for them, life has become slightly better in the years since the AK Party took power. Inflation has been cut. They are able to hold jobs that pay the rent. There is no war. They live relatively peaceful, content lives.

When I think of all the people i've seen protesting on the streets these last 5 days, I realize, I rarely (if ever) saw covered women. These were not the poor, disenfranchised of Turkey on the streets of Turkey. These were the secular, educated.

The people of my neighborhood don't see what's happening on Facebook. They happily watch the Penguin Documentary aired by CNN Turk, listen to Erdogan on the news chastise the trouble-makers and tsk tsk tsk their tongues at the mayhem.

I think it's still a long way before Turkey unites in its visions. The vast Anatolian population lies at the opposite end of the continuum from the Western freedom seekers. The poor still give thanks for small favors: meat and rice on the dinner table, a TV, peace to live their simple lives. The people on the streets protesting desire a democratic cornucopia of freedom.

and still the people come

The angry people of Istanbul pour into Beyoglu from the side streets. The police fire rubber bullets. And still they come. The police blasts the crowds with water mixed with tear gas. And still they come. The police fire tear gas bomb after tear gas bomb until the city is an angry gray cloud of toxic gas. People bang and clang on pots and pans in neighborhoods throughout the city. Tanks roam the city. Water cannons pummel back the crowds.  The people leave Taksim, walk to the Bosphorus Bride.   People take the Bosphorus Bridge. The police fire plastic bullets, brutally beat non-violent protesters. And still they come. There are now, in the early afternoon over 4000 people in Beyoglu alone,chanting, fists raised in the air in solidarity. It is rumored that 50,000 police from other areas in Turkey have been sent for. But still the people come. 100,000 people are expected to fill the streets and parks and byways and avenues of Istanbul by this evening.

It's War Folks

A not so funny thing happened on my way to Gezi Park where an ongoing protest is being held to keep Istanbul's last remaining green space from being turned into Istanbul's 94th shopping mall.  It was 1 in the afternoon.  I hadn't heard or read of what might have happened this morning and wanted to go and sit in for awhile if possible.  I was walking along Istiklal Caddesi, Istanbul's main (mainly pedestrian) shopping street.  I was about 2 blocks away from Taksim Sq.  when i heard all kinds of yelling and screaming.  A group of maybe 30 people were running toward me yelling "Polis! Polis!" Then i heard the BOOMPH! BOOMPH! sound of tear gas guns being fired. Taksim Sq disappeared in a cloud of tear gas.  I turned and started running.  Fortunately the wind was blowing hard.  In the opposite direction.  It's war folks.

There's Something in the Air... and it Burns Like Tear Gas

There's now a tank that seems to be parked almost daily on the gay pedestrian street Istiklal Caddesi.  The shoppers and gawkers and tourists and residents on their way somewhere or back walk along the line of shops morphed from Ma and Pop Kebab restaurants and local brands to MacDonalds, Burger King, Benetton, and Mango.  And the protesters who used to daily peacefully march, holding their placards and signs, waving flags and chanting, exercising their democratic rights, now face a new danger: tear gas and water hoses.

For the last ten years that I've here, it was only a once-a-year phenomenon - every 1 May, two tanks stationed at either end of Istiklal threatened any potential dissident. The aftermath of a seventies 1 May that left over thirty people dead.

Today it's become the face of force. A daily reminder to the people of Turkey that the government is ready to use whatever force necessary to squelch any and all dissent.

Last summer, the tables and chairs that lined all the side streets of Beyoglu were ordered "removed."  Those who dare defy the law and placed a table and a few chairs outside for patrons who wanted to smoke and drink outside, suffered the consequences of the "Outdoor Chair and Table Squad" - trucks that roamed the side streets waiting to pounce upon any table or chair placed outside and remove them.

Friday, a new alcohol law was passed.  No alcohol can be sold by stores after 10pm.  I'm not a drinker.  It doesn't affect me.  But there's a trend.  A trend that's highly unsettling.  Tanks parked on the busiest street of Istanbul.  Prohibition of any outdoor show of drinking alcohol.  No alcohol permitted to be bought or sold after 10pm.  And more journalists imprisoned every day.

What's next?  What's becoming of Ataturk's democracy?

Stay tuned for the next installment of "As the world turns Conservative."